In the grips of a historic self-delusion

A really good policy would be much more complicated and difficult....But at least it isn’t guaranteed to fail.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
05 July '15..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2015/07/breakdown-and-betrayal/



John Kerry in Vienna:

It’s now time to see whether or not we are able to close an agreement … But I want to be absolutely clear with everybody, we are not yet where we need to be on several of the most difficult issues. …

This negotiation could go either way. If hard choices get made in the next couple of days and made quickly, we could get an agreement this week. But if they are not made, we will not.

Either Mr. Kerry is in the grips of a historic self-delusion, or he thinks we are remarkably stupid.

Of course they will be able to “close an agreement.” The Western powers, led by the US, have found a way to creatively surrender on every major issue so far. Why should the remaining hurdles be too high for them?

I can imagine the chuckling among Iranian officials as they watch Western negotiators scurrying around trying to find a way to meet Khamenei’s latest dictats without looking too submissive.

It isn’t a secret any more. Kerry’s instructions are to make a deal and to make it look good, no matter what. We get it. Americans have short memories, and by the time things hit the fan, Obama will be on a high-priced speaking tour and Kerry will be spending his days aboard his yacht on Nantucket Sound.

I think the Iranians understand that they have little to fear from the US, unless the next election brings in a vastly different kind of administration. But by then it will be too late to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed power.

In Israel, which is not invited to the negotiating table and has to live almost next door to Iran, there isn’t space or time for self-delusion. PM Netanyahu said “what’s coming out of the nuclear talks in Vienna is not a breakthrough, it’s a breakdown.”

It’s also a betrayal. This is felt very strongly here, where – despite the historically spotty nature of US support – the US is probably the most beloved of countries. Michael Oren, an American-Israeli, wrote painfully that Obama had “abandoned” Israel. But that isn’t a correct formulation. Obama was never with Israel; he was always with the Muslim world and particularly the Palestinian Arabs. What has happened is that Obama and his team are trying to get America to abandon Israel.

Assuring Iran It Has Nothing to Fear

...With only weeks to go until the June 30 deadline for an Iran deal, there is no question that Obama’s statement makes an unsatisfactory final text even more certain than it was before. That’s good news for Tehran and very bad news for an Israeli people who have no reason to trust the president’s promises or believe in his good intentions.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
01 June '15..

At this point, there is virtually no one in Israel or the United States who thinks it is remotely possible that the Obama administration would ever, under virtually any circumstances, use force against Iran. Though President Obama and his foreign policy team have always claimed that “all options,” including force, are always on the table in the event that Iran refuses to back down and seeks to produce a nuclear weapon, that is a threat that few took seriously. But President Obama has never been quite as explicit about this before as he was in an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 in which he reportedly said there is no military option to stop Iran. If Obama wanted to telegraph Iran that it could be as tough as it likes in the talks over the final text of the nuclear deal being negotiated this month this statement certainly did the job. Though they had little worry about Obama’s toughness or resolve, the ayatollahs will be pleased to note that the president no longer even bothers to pretend he is prepared to do whatever is necessary to stop Iran’s nuclear ambition.

According to the Times of Israel, Obama said:

“A military solution will not fix it. Even if the United States participates, it would temporarily slow down an Iranian nuclear program but it will not eliminate it.”

Though he continued to use rhetoric that left force as an option, the implicit threat of American action if a nuclear weapon were a possibility has lacked credibility since the president began his second term. Once he embarked upon secret back-channel talks in which, one by one, he abandoned his previous pledges about forcing Iran to shut down its program in concessions and virtually every other U.S. position on the issue, force was never a real possibility. The signing of a weak interim deal in November, 2013, and then the framework agreed upon this spring signaled the end of any idea that the U.S. was prepared to act. That is especially so because the current deal leaves Tehran in possession of its nuclear infrastructure and with no guarantees about inspections or the re-imposition of sanctions in the event the agreement collapsed. The current deal, even with so many crucial details left unspecified makes Iran a U.S. partner and, in effect, the centerpiece of a new U.S. Middle East policy that essentially sidelines traditional allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel that are directly threatened by Iran.

Moreover, it must be conceded that the use of force against Iran would be problematic even for the United States and its vast military resources. As for Israel, despite a lot of bold talk by some in the Jewish state, there has always been skepticism that its outstanding air force had the ability to sustain an air campaign for the length of time that would be required to make a difference. Nevertheless, the notion that force would not be effective in forestalling an Iranian bomb is mistaken. Serious damage could put off the threat for a long time and, if sanctions were kept in place or made stricter as they should have been to strengthen the West’s bargaining position, the possibility of an Iranian nuke could have been put off for the foreseeable future.

Yet, while talk about using force has been largely obsolete once the interim deal was signed in 2013, for the president to send such a clear signal that he will not under any circumstances walk away from the current talks, no matter what Iran does, is significant.

Without the bold red line, a very tough call.

...Should the outline of the framework agreement mature into a final deal, Israel will be faced with only a handful of options: making do with the deal, meaning preparing for the day when Iran becomes nuclear while trying to generate deterrence, or trying to forcibly stop Tehran, contrary to world powers' wishes. Neither option is a good one, making for a very tough call.

Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror..
Israel Hayom..
17 April '15..

The nuclear framework agreement signed between Iran and world powers, namely the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, on April 2, was defined by U.S. President Barack Obama as a "historic understanding," while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defined the deal as "bad."

I believe both leaders are right: The deal has radically changed Iran's position in the global theater, in exchange for it temporarily slowing down its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and in this respect it is indeed historic. The agreement affords Iran the status of a regional power and legitimizes it as a nuclear threshold state. However, it is up to Iran to decide when to cross this threshold, and in this respect it is a bad deal.

The U.S. changed its policy mid-negotiations, going from demanding that Iran be stripped of its nuclear weapons production capabilities, to discussing the nature of the limitations and supervision placed on these capabilities.

The framework deal clearly indicates that the U.S. has come to accept that Iran will one day possess military nuclear capabilities, and that at the end of the supervision period there would be nothing stopping the Islamic republic from realizing this potential.

Obama told the American people as much in a radio interview, before his spokesmen rushed to say he was misunderstood. But even if that was the case, Obama's statements reflected the reality which may arise from any final agreement with Iran.

This reality entails three scenarios. The first may see the Iranians relinquish their nuclear efforts, willingly or otherwise. Some in the U.S. administration believe this is a viable option, and that bolstering the moderate forces within Iran will eventually effect change.

The second scenario may see the Iranians diligently follow the agreement, while stabilizing their economy, reinforcing their regional status, strengthening their allies such as Hezbollah, and enhancing their nuclear expertise. Then, once the agreement's sunset clause comes into effect, the Iranians will resume the military aspects of their program with renewed zeal.

Throughout the negotiations, that U.S. has attempted to prolong the period during which Iran would be unable to pursue nuclear capabilities, saying that if Tehran complies with the agreement, it would buy the West more time, at least a decade. The administration's excuse was that a deferral of the matter was preferable to the alternative, a military operation, which may not buy the West the same amount of time, making the deal a better option.

The third scenario may see the Iranians bide their time and wait for the right moment to violate the deal. This will probably happen only after all the sanctions are lifted, and after enough countries have vested financial interests in Iran, which would deter them from targeting its economy.

The U.S., for its part, has pledged to put in place rigorous inspection practices, which would guarantee the West at least a year to detect any violation of the agreement.

A new, violent Middle East

Would such an agreement guarantee, to any extent, a change in Iran's nuclear aspirations? It seems the opposite is true. In the near future, the agreement will only fuel Iran's desire to realize the potential outlined and legitimized by the deal. The hope that the agreement will somehow breed a positive process in Iran has no hold in reality.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani appears eager for his country to obtain nuclear weapons. In fact, there is no debate within the Iranian leadership on whether or not such capabilities are necessary, only about the best way to go about achieving them.

Only a profound misunderstanding of the nature of the Iranian regime could lead anyone to believe that any deal will somehow satisfy the ayatollahs' nuclear ambitions, to the point of becoming a game changer.

Even in the most chimerical of worlds, 'not a framework deal, but rather deception'

..."The first time I read the American fact sheet it looked amazing and fantastic, too good to be true. I could hardly believe my eyes. For a moment, I thought Obama was a magician who could walk on water. I told myself that if Khamenei agreed to that outline, to things that for years he vowed and preached he would not agree to do, than all our diligent, systematic monitoring of Iran's internal discourse was of no consequence, because it could change in an instant. "But then at the end of the day, it turned out that the fantastic achievement was nothing but a fata morgana. A ploy that didn't last even 36 hours," he said.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
09 April '15..

While U.S. President Barack Obama is engaged in a "world war" with Congress over the framework nuclear deal with Iran and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken a clear stand on the matter, one of the foremost experts on Iran, Col. (ret.) Yigal Carmon, provides a fresh perspective and some new facts, which may send this hot potato rolling in new directions.

"The U.S. and Iran have, in fact, not reached any nuclear agreement," said Carmon, the founder and president of the prestigious Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

"The joint statement in Lausanne, which the Iranians defined as a press release, was nothing but a smokescreen meant to disguise difficult, ongoing disagreements between the parties," Carmon, who served as counterterrorism adviser to prime ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin, and who has been following Arab politics and Middle East media closely for years, asserted.

Carmon, who along with MEMRI's experts on Iran is currently in the institute's offices in Washington, believes the "fact sheet" released by the White House and the U.S. State Department, detailing the alleged deal with Iran, was "a ploy of incredible deception, meant to prevent Congress from imposing immediate, crippling sanctions on the Iranians."

He recommends Netanyahu change his approach, and inform Obama that since this is clearly a ruse, and that there are no understandings with Iran, let alone a deal, Israel expects and hopes Congress will continue to pursue and intensify its sanctions on Iran.

***

Carmon has been closely following the nuclear negotiations between the West and Iran for years, and describes a scenario that is vastly different than the one he says was "staged" in Lausanne, first by the heads of the Iranian delegation to the talks, and later by the State Department and Obama.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei "has made it clear, time and again over the past few months and contrary to American statements, that this is not a two-stage negotiation, and that there would be no interim agreement at the end of March, to be followed by a final agreement at the end of June," Carmon explained.

"It was, apparently, only after Obama informed the Iranians that Congress would exacerbate the sanctions if the negotiations reach their deadline with no result that Khamenei agreed to a wary, minimal, and limited move, providing Obama with a show of sorts."

Q: A show?

"Yes. The Americans called the Lausanne statement 'a joint statement,' but for the Iranians it was no more than 'a press release.' If you read the Lausanne statement word for word, you see it amounts to no agreement. The most far-reaching statement it makes mentions 'solutions for key parameters for the final deal.' The wording is vague and nonbinding, and can be interpreted either way." Binding agreements are left for the future, whenever the final solution is drafted.

Q: But the White House issued a very detailed fact sheet about the agreement reached with the Iranians, a follow-up on what you call "vague and nonbinding" language.

"That document was born when Obama understood that the Lausanne statement was too weak to go with to Congress, to block new, immediate, crippling sanctions," Carmon explained.

"The first time I read the American fact sheet it looked amazing and fantastic, too good to be true. I could hardly believe my eyes. For a moment, I thought Obama was a magician who could walk on water. I told myself that if Khamenei agreed to that outline, to things that for years he vowed and preached he would not agree to do, than all our diligent, systematic monitoring of Iran's internal discourse was of no consequence, because it could change in an instant.

"But then at the end of the day, it turned out that the fantastic achievement was nothing but a fata morgana. A ploy that didn't last even 36 hours," he said.

"When the American fact sheet was first brought to the attention of the Iranian foreign minister he said it was a media spin," Carmon continued. "Later on he and his deputy bluntly challenged [U.S. Secretary of State] John Kerry by saying the fact sheet was false.

"The Iranians ended up releasing their own, very detailed fact sheet, indicating that there are substantial gaps between the two documents. This means there are no agreements, or anything close to agreements."

Detailed Shortcomings? Flimsy Assurances? A Bad Nuclear Deal? Never Mind!

...Supporters of the administration understand that their only real talking point is one that claims that even a weak deal is better than none at all. That is not a compelling argument about any issue and certainly not one that involves giving a vicious, aggressive anti-Semitic regime the status of a threshold nuclear power.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
08 April '15..

Rather than merely inveigh against the seeming betrayal of the U.S.-Israel alliance represented by President Obama’s pursuit of détente with Iran, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government is attempting to reason with the administration. It has issued a detailed list of shortcomings with the as-yet-unwritten deal with Tehran that illustrate just how flimsy are the assurances about the nuclear threat the administration has been giving the nation. The president has dismissed some of them but for the most part the White House has ignored, at least in public, the specific problems with the pact. But the New York Times editorial page, which continues to serve as the president’s chief cheerleader, did deign to notice the Israeli list today. And while the editors of the Times acknowledged that all of the Israeli points were troubling, their response was straight out of a classic Saturday Night Live comedy routine: Never mind. While this is quite a commentary on the poor reasoning of the deal’s chief advocates, it also illustrates that their boasts about the agreement’s worth are as hollow as the president’s assurances that it will stop Iran from getting a bomb.

Though the Times terms the deal “surprisingly comprehensive,” the most interesting thing about the editorial is that it can’t dismiss the list of problems that Israeli Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz has produced. On each point, even the Times, which has been consistently and scathingly critical of the Netanyahu government on Iran as well as every other possible issue, admits the Israelis generally have a good argument.

The Times admits that eliminating Iran’s centrifuges, closing down the impregnable mountainside facility at Fordow, and mandating inspections anytime and anywhere would be preferable to what President Obama has accepted.

On other points, the Times notes Israel’s objections, but disingenuously claims that the agreement satisfies them. One such is the question of the stockpile of enriched uranium that, contrary to the expectations of even critics of the administration’s negotiating strategy, will not be shipped out of Iran and will instead remain under the regime’s control. The Times says that this stockpile, like the continued operation of the thousands of centrifuges that will continue to operate, means that “Iran can’t enrich material for nuclear weapons.” But that is not true since the stockpile can be easily and quickly reconverted to use for nuclear fuel. So, too, can any centrifuges that are being reconfigured for other uses.

Elsewhere, the Times merely engages in wishful thinking. That is especially true in its reaction to the Israelis pointing out that Iran has continued to stonewall the International Atomic Energy Agency on its past research on military use of nuclear material. The fact that the deal does not require Iran to tell the truth about this is a fatal flaw since without knowing how much progress they’ve made, all estimates about the time needed for a nuclear “breakout” are uninformed guesses. To this point, the Times merely breezily pretends that the written final version of the agreement will ensure that Iran does open up on this issue.

That is nonsense, since Iran has already learned that when faced with a refusal in a negotiation, the Obama administration always folds. And that is the entire point of both the editorial and the cogent criticisms that have been made about the deal.

Naively wishing to give caprice a chance

...Perhaps the best way to divine where things are headed is simply to put aside for the moment all the minutiae you might have read about spinning centrifuges and enriched uranium, and consider just one, simple question: can the ayatollahs be trusted to keep their word? Well, if their behavior over the past two decades is any indication, the answer is clearly "no."

Michael Freund..
Pundicity/JPost..
09 April '15..

Precisely a week ago, Barack Obama stood in the Rose Garden at the White House and triumphantly declared that a nuclear deal had been reached with Iran.

But as troubling details about the agreement continue to emerge, even as Tehran and Washington offer sharply differing accounts of what was agreed upon, the public is still scratching its collective head and wondering what it all means.

Perhaps the best way to divine where things are headed is simply to put aside for the moment all the minutiae you might have read about spinning centrifuges and enriched uranium, and consider just one, simple question: can the ayatollahs be trusted to keep their word? Well, if their behavior over the past two decades is any indication, the answer is clearly "no."

After all, Tehran's nuclear program came to light in 2002 only after an Iranian exile group held a press conference and disseminated photographs and data regarding the country's covert nuclear installations. It turned out that Iran had been working in secret for 18 years (!) on its nuclear program, which it had concealed from the international community and repeatedly lied about.

Then, in September 2012, the Iranian regime actually admitted that it had intentionally deceived the West about the nature and extent of its atomic program. In an interview published in the London-based daily Al-Hayat, Iranian Vice President Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani, who was also the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said, "Sometimes we pretended to be weaker than we really were, and sometimes we showed strength that was not really in our hands." Abbasi-Davani then added that, "We sometimes gave false information to protect our nuclear sites and our interests. This inevitably misled other intelligence agencies."

In light of Tehran's chronic trouble telling the truth, does it really seem sensible to risk the future of Israel and Western civilization on the dim hope that this time Iran will at last be forthright and honest? Worse yet is the fact that this marks the second time in nearly two decades that the United States has reached a dubious deal with a devious dictatorship about nuclear development, with the previous attempt having been made with North Korea.

And if the outcome of that protracted effort is any indication, there is little reason to take comfort in Obama's soothing assurances that Iran will not be permitted to get the bomb.

For in an eerily similar situation, the US and North Korea signed an "Agreed Framework" on October 12, 1994, under which President Bill Clinton promised the Stalinist regime economic cooperation and aid in exchange for a halt to its nuclear program. Needless to say, the North Koreans proceeded to laugh all the way to the bank, as they received various benefits while continuing to pursue nuclear weapons covertly.

Surprise! Iran Announces Film to Celebrate Israel’s Coming Destruction

...Importantly, the article describing the film was published after agreement on a nuclear framework between the P5+1 and Iran. Let’s hope that with their willful naivete, Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry don’t get credit for small but important bit roles.

Michael Rubin..
Commentary Magazine..
08 April '15..

President Barack Obama has dismissed arguments that U.S. negotiators should demand that Iran recognize Israel and Israel’s right to exist as part of any final agreement. To do so would be too difficult, the president argues, and not relevant to the narrow goal at hand which is simply to strike an accord to constrain Iran’s nuclear breakout ability for a decade or so. Perhaps no statement better illustrates the moral and cultural equivalence that infuses President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry.

It is akin to saying North Korea seeks South Korea’s destruction and it would be too complicated to impede Pyongyang’s murderous intent. Russian President Vladimir Putin has expansionist intent? Well, let’s not let his imperialist ambitions toward the Baltics, Poland, and the rest of Ukraine get in the way of our diplomacy.

Understanding Why Obama’s Stance on Israel is Questioned by So Many

...The president can complain about his hurt feelings as much as he wants though to do so strains even the credulity of his most fawning interviewers. But by agreeing to a deal that makes Iran a threshold nuclear power without insisting on it dropping its ideology of hate, the president has answered questions about his negative attitude toward Israel by confirming the worst fears of his critics.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
06 April '15..

Yesterday (Sunday)  in an interview with the New York Times Thomas Friedman, President Obama purported to be aggrieved that anyone would question his support for Israel or his respect for concerns about its security. Not satisfied with merely asserting his devotion to the Jewish state, he said it was “personally difficult” to hear such criticism and that he would consider his presidency “a failure” if anything he did weakened it. Six years of endless attempts to undermine Israel’s diplomatic position and the last few months of bitter, personal and even vulgar criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu culminating in threats to leave it isolated at the United Nations made his protestations absurd if not completely disingenuous. But Israelis could at least console themselves that in the course of trying to sell his appeasement of Iran to Congress, he was trying to downplay the crisis in the alliance that he had created. But it only took 24 hours for Obama to answer his own question about why so many Americans and Israelis question his attitude about Israel. In another interview, this time with another friendly questioner from the reliably liberal NPR, Obama dismissed the suggestion that Iran be asked to recognize Israel as part of the nuclear deal he is promoting. His reason: doing so would mean asking Iran to change the nature of its regime. To which critics must respond that this is exactly why it can’t be trusted with a nuclear infrastructure.

Obama said the following to NPR’s Steve Inskeep:

The notion that we would condition Iran not getting nuclear weapons in a verifiable deal on Iran recognizing Israel is really akin to saying that we won’t sign a deal unless the nature of the Iranian regime completely transforms. And that is, I think, a fundamental misjudgment.

Obama went on to say that he believed the reason why the deal couldn’t be struck in that matter was because his goal was to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons and that he couldn’t count on it changing.

That makes a sort of superficial sense. And if the as yet unwritten deal actually ensured that Iran could never get a nuclear weapon, he might have a strong case for ignoring the nature of the Iranian government. But despite his ardent salesmanship, he can’t honestly claim that it does. Obama has made an endless string of concessions that have allowed to keep its nuclear infrastructure, included its fortified bunker at Fordow, not forced it to export its stockpile of nuclear fuel, reveal the extent of its nuclear research and put an expiration date on the restrictions on its program. All this means that Iran can, if it is patient, build up its nuclear capabilities and then have a bomb in short order at the end of the agreement. Or, if it is not that patient, it can easily cheat its way to a weapon due to the weakness of the deal and the lack of a truly strict inspections regime or the ability of the West to quickly reimpose sanctions.

At best, all Obama has accomplished is to delay an Iranian bomb. At worst, he has allowed it to get close to one with Western permission and after having made it impossible to reassemble the international coalition that might have brought Iran to its knees had it been led by an American president with the guts to stick to a tough line rather than one that folded at every opportunity. The reason for this was that Obama’s goal throughout this process was détente with an aggressive, anti-Semitic and tyrannical regime rather than an effort to keep his 2012 campaign promise to eliminate its nuclear program.

Thus, the question about forcing it to recognize Israel is actually an apt one. Having empowered Iran at a time when its quest for regional hegemony via actions in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and now Gaza are scaring Israelis as well as moderate Arabs, it is fair to ask why the deal ignored Tehran’s support for terrorism and its frequent threats to obliterate Israel.

Persian carpetry and the merchants of menace

...Innocent tourists walking by a Persian merchant's shop may get ripped off but end up with a carpet - perhaps too expensive, perhaps low quality, perhaps bound to crumble soon - but a carpet. No one in these negotiations ever had a realistic basis for thinking Iran's merchants were selling carpets (i.e. ordinary nuclear energy). Their program was in fact weapons-directed at all stages. The negotiators for the P5+1 all know this, knew this, but smile broadly when the cameras are pointed at them. We wonder how.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
06 April '15..

Dr Michael Oren served Israel as its ambassador to the United States between 2009 and 2013. He ran for the Knesset in the February 2015 elections and is now a politician, representing the brand-spanking-new Kulanu Party (created just five months ago). Still, what he says often hits the right note, in our view.

So here is an extract from an essay of his, published a couple of days ago on the TIME website, and offering some gently-worded but trenchant criticism of the West's approach - and in particular America's - to the Nuclear Iran deal and what the Persian carpet business ("Iran’s largest after oil") can teach us.

...The Middle Eastern form of negotiating, perfected over thousands of years, should no longer be alien to Westerners. The Palestinians have employed it repeatedly, starting each round of peace talks with “how much are you willing to spend?” If the answer is a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps and its capital in East Jerusalem, be assured that this will be their new opening position. The Palestinians — not the Israelis — keep walking away from the table, each time pocketing their newly-obtained concessions.

Nobody should be surprised, when discussions on a final nuclear agreement begin, Iranian delegates treat the parameters agreement as the baseline for garnering an even better price.

(Continue Reading)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
.

Unquestionably, Appeasing Iran Will Come With a Terrible Price

...The Islamic Republic remains implacably opposed to Israel's existence and its leaders speak approvingly of the country's destruction. The U.S. is in Iran's sights too. Hence Ayatollah Khamenei's chilling call for 'Death to America' only a fortnight ago in Tehran. No attempt is made to hide such incendiary rhetoric. Instead it is embraced with a zeal and brazenness that is wholly unsettling. This deal allows Iran to continue sponsoring terrorist groups, carry out human rights violations and destabilise the entire region. This is the truly terrible price to pay for appeasing a rogue regime.

Jeremy Harvardi..
The Commentator..
04 April '15..

he face of it, the parameters of the deal on Iran's nuclear programme are better than expected. The country is not about to join the elite nuclear club, at least for the time being. Under the proposed deal, Tehran must reduce by two thirds all its installed centrifuges, and those that remain will only be first generation.

It has agreed 'not to enrich uranium over 3.67 percent' for 15 years while reducing its stockpile of enriched uranium from 10,000 kg to 300 kg for the same period. It has agreed 'not to enrich uranium at Fordow for 15 years' and to rebuild the heavy water reactor in Arak for peaceful purposes.

The IAEA 'will have regular access to all of Iran's nuclear facilities' and 'the supply chain that supports Iran's nuclear program'. Sanctions relief will be given if Iran 'verifiably abides by its commitments' but sanctions 'snap back' if there is 'significant non-performance'.

For the next decade, the breakout time for acquiring enough fissile material for a bomb, currently two to three months, will be extended to at least one year.

But appeasement has a price -- it always does. Iran has effectively received international legitimacy as a nuclear threshold state. Years of Security Council resolutions were supposed to have resulted in the complete suspension of nuclear activities and the removal of Iran's nuclear architecture.

(Continue Reading)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
.

Iranian Defector: U.S. Negotiators Argue Iran’s Side. Where's the Coverage?

...In a subsequent television interview, Motaghi described the talks he’d been witnessing, saying, “The U.S. negotiating team are mainly there to speak on Iran’s behalf with other members of the 5+1 countries and convince them of a deal.”

Sarit Catz..
CAMERA Snapshots..
02 April '15..







The United Kingdom’s The Telegraph has reported:

A close media aide to Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president, has sought political asylum in Switzerland after travelling to Lausanne to cover the nuclear talks between Tehran and the West.

Amir Hossein Motaghi, who managed public relations for Mr Rouhani during his 2013 election campaign, was said by Iranian news agencies to have quit his job at the Iran Student Correspondents Association (ISCA).

In a subsequent television interview, Motaghi described the talks he’d been witnessing, saying, “The U.S. negotiating team are mainly there to speak on Iran’s behalf with other members of the 5+1 countries and convince them of a deal.”

More under-reported aspects of the Iranian reality

...Give the man credit for eschewing the genteel double-talk of his political superiors. What's on his mind is "erasing Israel off the map".

Iran's Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi: That
Westerners know almost nothing about the man, his sadistic,
lethal cruelty, and the central role he plays in Iranian life,
speaks volumes for the debate over a nuclear Iran deal
[Image Source]

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
01 April '15..

With the attention of most of the news-reporting industry focused on Lausanne and the marathon efforts to negotiate a nuclear Iran agreement, the name of Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi is not the one on most people's lips. Perhaps it ought to be.

Naqdi, actually an Iraqi with Iranian "origins" with a penchant for practising self-torture, is the commander of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Sâzmân-e Basij-e Mostaz'afin ("The Organization for Mobilization of the Oppressed"), usually described as a 'paramilitary' force. If people know of it at all, it's may be under the name Basij.

The New York Times described it in 2009 ["Shadowy Iranian Vigilantes Vow Bolder Action", June 18, 2009] this way:

The daytime protests across the Islamic republic have been largely peaceful. But Iranians shudder at the violence unleashed in their cities at night, with the shadowy vigilantes known as Basijis beating, looting and sometimes gunning down protesters they tracked during the day... [T]he Basijis lack uniforms, proper identification or anything that denotes them as public employees [and appear] with hoses, clubs, iron bars, truncheons and sometimes firearms.

At a time when the true motivations of Iran's leadership are at the heart of serious global controversy with existential consequences, Naqdi and his views appear to be getting kid gloves treatment - not so much here in Israel, for obvious reasons.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
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Time for a nice quiet sleep? The countdown to a nuclear Iran deal

...Everything we have seen about the Iran nuclear talks screams "catastrophically bad deal". Most people tune conclusions like that out. So we are reprinting here three exceptionally articulate and clear opinion pieces, all from the past 24 hours, as our contribution to keeping readers awake at night, at least tonight.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
30 March '15..

The negotiations for an agreement that will curb (in some sense) Iran's nuclear program and free Iran (in some sense) from international sanctions that have squeezed its economy are, by general consensus, in their final 24 hours.

The pressure-cooker atmosphere stems from a March 31 "soft" deadline that Iran and the P5+1 group imposed on themselves in November 2014 to achieve (in some sense) a general agreement. The more detailed terms (in some sense) are to be signed off by June 2015.

No one would purchase an apartment with this degree of uncertainty and flexibility about what was agreed. It's bizarre, and that's before we take the cataclysmic scale of the dangers into account.

Today it got meaningfully worse. The Iranians pulled what one commentator we respect calls "a last minute bait-and-switch". The background is in today's New York Times ["Iran Backs Away From Key Detail in Nuclear Deal"], but Omri Ceren sums it up better than they do. The Iranians, in his words:

bargained up their centrifuge numbers for months by saying that they'd ship out whatever material they enriched, the assumption being that who cares how much uranium they enrich to 3.5% as long as they don't have it physically available to enrich further. Now that they've ratcheted up the number of centrifuges to over 6,000, they're saying they won't ship out the material... it looks like the administration got outplayed by Persian negotiators… again.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter, 
.

Truthfully, Spies Who Live in Glass Houses Shouldn’t Throw Stones

...Is Israel supposed to sit blind, deaf, and dumb while this is going on? ... This is a matter of survival for the Jewish State. So, while Netanyahu has made some missteps in his dealing with Obama, such as challenging his negotiating position before Congress, this is an instance where Israeli actions are understandable: If the U.S. refuses to share what could be life or death information with Israel, the Jewish State will get its information however it can. If it were put in a similar position, the U.S. or any other nation would act in the same way.

Max Boot..
Commentary Magazine..
24 March '15..

The Wall Street Journal rattled some teacups with its article today claiming that Israel is spying on the American team negotiating with Iran and sharing the results with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. It should be noted that in the article itself Israeli officials deny that they were spying on the U.S.; they say they got their information from spying on the Iranians and from information freely shared with them by the French, who are more interested in keeping the Israelis informed than the Americans are. Whether the Israeli defense is true or not I don’t know. But either way there is nothing particularly shocking going on here.

As a general matter, let us stipulate that allies should minimize the extent to which they spy on each other, if only because such revelations can be embarrassing and damaging. But the reality is that almost everyone does it. The only notable exception I’m aware of is the “Five Eyes”—the U.S., Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada—which have been closely cooperating in intelligence matters since World War II. The U.S. certainly spies on allies such as France and Germany, as we discovered from Edward Snowden’s leaks. And they spy on us.

For that matter the U.S. also spies on Israel. In fact it was through such spying that Israel discovered the alleged Israeli spying. As the Journal notes: “The White House discovered the [Israeli] operation, in fact, when U.S. intelligence agencies spying on Israel intercepted communications among Israeli officials that carried details the U.S. believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks, officials briefed on the matter said.”

So U.S. officials are in no position to be pointing fingers at Israel. If the Journal account is to be believed, the administration is less upset by the Israeli espionage than by the Israelis sharing what they discovered with legislators: “The espionage didn’t upset the White House as much as Israel’s sharing of inside information with U.S. lawmakers and others to drain support from a high-stakes deal intended to limit Iran’s nuclear program, current and former officials said.”

The World of Bazaar [Bizarre] Diplomacy

...The most important rule in the bazaar is that if the vendor knows that you desire to purchase a certain piece of merchandise, he will raise its price. …“This is the wisdom of the bazaar, if you are clever enough you can sell ‘nothing’ at a price. The Arabs sell words, they sign agreements, and they trade with vague promises, but are sure to receive generous down payments from eager buyers. In the bazaar only a foolish buyer pays for something he has never seen.

Steve Kramer..
Times of Israel..
08 March '15..

Emeritus Professor Moshe Sharon of the Hebrew University famously lectured on negotiations in the Middle East. He wrote: “To achieve their goal, the Arabs took to the battlefield and to bazaar diplomacy. The most important rule in the bazaar is that if the vendor knows that you desire to purchase a certain piece of merchandise, he will raise its price. …

“This is the wisdom of the bazaar, if you are clever enough you can sell ‘nothing’ at a price. The Arabs sell words, they sign agreements, and they trade with vague promises, but are sure to receive generous down payments from eager buyers. In the bazaar only a foolish buyer pays for something he has never seen.

“There is another rule in the market as well as across the negotiating table: the side that first presents his terms is bound to loose; the other side builds his next move using the open cards of his opponent as the starting point.

“In all its negotiations with the Palestinian Arabs, Israel has always rushed to offer its plans, and was surprised to discover that after an agreement had been “concluded” it had become the basis for further demands.” (www.acpr.org.il/)

Substitute “Iran” for “Arabs” and “P5+1” for “Israel” and you will know why Iran has negotiated rings around the US and its P5+1 partners (US, Russia, China, United Kingdom, and France, plus Germany). Not only that – the chief Western negotiator is Wendy Sherman, whose background is particularly unsuitable for hard-nosed bartering with the wily Iranians, who know a thing or two about driving a hard bargain. Sherman’s main “accomplishment” up to now is allowing North Korea to become a rogue nuclear state.

The Truly Poor Arguments in Support of a Bad Deal with Iran

...Suddenly our choice is not a bad deal or no deal, it’s this deal or a conflict with Iran. The administration treats disagreement on this as a nearly form of sedition. Yet those who disagree include not only the government of Israel: many members of Congress in both parties fear the terms of this agreement that is apparently near conclusion. From the bitter experience of North Korea the administration has apparently learned little–and that was a bad deal that was surely worse than no deal at all.

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
03 March '15..

For six years the mantra of the Obama administration about the Iran nuclear negotiations has been simple, direct, and powerful: “No deal is better than a bad deal.” One cannot count the number of times the President, his secretaries of state, his national security advisors, and his negotiators have said exactly this–including this week when Susan Rice repeated it to an AIPAC audience.

Some people believe the proposed deal is a bad deal, and therefore that no deal is better. One might have expected the administration to reply “No, here we disagree; on its merits this deal is a good one.”

The administration says that but cannot leave it there. We also hear, and have been hearing for months, that unless you accept the proposed deal you are choosing war. If you’re the prime minister of Israel and criticize the deal, you’re no longer an ally; you’re treated with vicious invective. If you object, you’re told you don’t really seek a better deal; you are seeking a collapse of the talks.

(+ Full Video) Netanyahu’s Address to U.S. Congress. Brilliant, Clear and to the Point

...Try as they might to continue to abuse Netanyahu for a brilliant speech, the White House’s response demonstrates nothing but its intolerance for criticism and inability to defend a policy of capitulation to Iran. Rather than engage in pointless discussions about the president’s hurt feelings or Netanyahu’s chutzpah for telling the truth about the negotiations, it’s time for the press and Congress to start asking the administration tough questions about a reckless deal before it is too late.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
03 March '15..

If President Obama was hoping that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu would lay an egg with his much-anticipated and controversial speech to a joint session of Congress, he was gravely disappointed. Netanyahu’s address was a triumph that put the administration on the defensive over its reckless pursuit of détente with Iran. But though the administration’s apologists are willing to admit that Netanyahu won on style points, they are wrong when they claim he offered no alternative to a deal with Iran that abandons the president’s previously stated principles about forcing the Islamist regime to abandon their nuclear ambitions. To the contrary, Netanyahu’s speech was more than stirring rhetoric. It laid out clear benchmarks for what must be achieved in any deal and pointed the way toward a return to tough sanctions and equally tough negotiating tactics. In doing so, he put the administration on the defensive and, no matter what happens in the talks, forces it to explain an indefensible deal and reminded Congress that it has a responsibility to weigh in on the issue to ensure the nation’s security.


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What had to most frustrate the White House was Netanyahu’s ability to debunk their main talking point about the speech. After weeks of hyping the address as an injection of partisanship into the U.S.-Israel relationship, the prime minister’s willingness to give the president his due for past support of Israel and his refusal to mention the many instances in which Obama had undercut the Jewish state’s position and deliberately attempted to create more distance between the two allies made the White House’s angry reaction look petty. The prime minister’s initial decision to accept House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation gave the president the opening he needed to distract the country from his Iran policy. With the help of the president’s always helpful press cheering section, White House political operatives made Netanyahu’s supposed breach of protocol the issue rather than the appeasement of Iran. But they eventually succumbed to overkill in denouncing Netanyahu and by the time the prime minister took the podium at the Capitol, the administration’s efforts had the unintended effect of giving him a bigger audience than he might otherwise have had.

Thus, by the time the address was over, the issue was no longer whether he should have given the speech. Though the White House is doggedly trying to portray the speech as partisan, it was not. Now it is the substance of Netanyahu’s concerns about Iran’s behavior and the failure of the Western powers to negotiate a deal that would stop Iran from getting a weapon that is the subject of discussion. Which is to say that after winning news cycles at Netanyahu’s expense throughout February, the White House has set itself up to have to explain years of concessions to a dangerous regime with almost nothing to show for it in terms of making the world any safer.

Does Anyone Believe Obama Has a Strategy to Stop Iran?

...The president’s critics can’t be sure that their strategy of a return to sanctions and tough pressure on Iran aimed at bringing the regime to its knees will succeed. But, despite the president’s claims, he never tried it before he prematurely abandoned pressure for appeasement. But we can be almost certain that a strategy that aims at entente with Iran is guaranteed to fail miserably. Indeed, it is not so much a recipe for failure as it is one for a completely different approach to Iran that is ready to acquiesce to their demands. That is a position that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu does well to protest tomorrow (today) in his speech to Congress. So should Democrats and Republicans who take their pledges to stop Iran more seriously than the president.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
02 March '15..

In an interview with Reuters intended as a rebuttal to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress tomorrow, President Obama claims that his critics are not only wrong about his negotiating strategy with Iran, but that they lack one of their own other than to declare war. The attempt to depict his critics as warmongers is a classic Obama straw man. Opponents of his policy do have an alternative: returning to the policy of pressure and sanctions that the president discarded in 2013 which offered the only way, short of the use of force, to force Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. But the real fallacy here is not so much the typical administration smears of critics. It is the fact that the president has an Iran strategy at all. Having made concession after concession to Iran in the last two years, there is little reason to believe that the current negotiations will stop Iran. To the contrary, the president appears set on a path that ensures that, sooner or later, Iran will get its bomb.

Let’s examine the president’s claims.

Both the president and Secretary of State John Kerry have insisted that agreeing to let Iran keep its nuclear program—something that he specifically promised he would never do in his 2012 foreign-policy debate with Mitt Romney—was unavoidable. They claim that Western pressure would never have forced Iran to surrender its nukes. More than that, they assert that their concessions have enticed Iran to agree to strictures that have halted Tehran’s progress toward a bomb.

The answer to the first claim is that we don’t know if that would have worked because Obama never tried it. By abandoning sanctions just at the moment when Iran seemed to be feeling the pressure—and prior to an oil price collapse that would have made them even less capable of resisting foreign pressure—the president ensured that the Islamist regime never had to face a worst-case scenario. Instead of waiting for them to fold, he did, and the result was a nuclear deal that undid years of diplomacy aimed at building an international consensus against Iran’s right to enrich uranium.

The president and Kerry are now boasting that their interim deal hasn’t been violated by Iran and that it has stopped their progress in its tracks. But given the poor intelligence that the U.S. has about Iran and the regime’s lack of cooperation with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, this is purely a matter of conjecture and faith on the part of the president and his apologists. But even if we were to believe, in spite of Iran’s long record of cheating on nuclear issues, that somehow the interim deal was succeeding, even the president concedes that allowing them to keep their nuclear infrastructure means that Iran could always go back on its promises, re-activate the stockpile of nuclear fuel still in its possession, and “break out” to a bomb in short order.

The length of a “break out” is a key point in the president’s defense of his strategy. He told Reuters that as long as long as this period was at least a year, the U.S. would be able to detect it in time to re-impose sanctions or use force to stop them from obtaining a bomb. But this is another argument based more on faith than facts and which, even in the unlikely event it is vindicated, still makes Iran stronger and puts U.S. allies in the region as well as the West in peril.

The prediction of a year is an optimistic conjecture embraced by the president because it sounds better than the few months some others think is a more sensible estimate. The lack of credible inspections of Iran’s military research makes any predictions about the length of a breakout a guess, and not even an educated one. U.S. intelligence in Iran is negligible. Even the IAEA concedes that Iran may have extensive nuclear facilities that the West knows nothing about.

Trying to Avert War - Netanyahu, Churchill and Congress

...There are striking similarities between the objectives of Churchill's speech nearly 75 years ago and Netanyahu's today; both with no less purpose than to avert global conflagration. And, like Churchill's in the 1930s, Netanyahu's is the lone voice among world leaders today. There is no doubt abut Iran's intent. It has been described as a nuclear Auschwitz. Israel is not the only target of Iranian violence. Iran has long been making good on its promises to mobilize Islamic forces against the US, as well as the UK and other American allies. Attacks directed and supported by Iran have killed an estimated 1,100 American troops in Iraq in recent years. Iran provided direct support to Al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks....It is not yet too late to prevent Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons. In his 1941 speech to Congress, Churchill reminded the American people that five or six years previously it would have been easy to prevent Germany from rearming without bloodshed. But by then it was too late.

Richard Kemp..
Gatestone Institute..
01 March '15..

In a few days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address the US Congress for the third time. The only other foreign leader to have had that privilege was Winston Churchill. Like Churchill when he first spoke to Congress in December 1941, Netanyahu is taking a risk.

For Churchill the risk was to his life -- he had to make a hazardous transatlantic voyage aboard the battleship HMS Duke of York through stormy, U-boat infested waters. For Netanyahu the risk is to his own political life and to his country's relationship with the United States, given the intense presidential opposition to his speech.

But like Churchill was, Netanyahu is a fighting soldier and, like Churchill, a tough political leader, unafraid to shoulder such risks when so much is at stake. And in both cases, the stakes could not be higher, greater than their own lives, political fortunes or rivalries and affecting not just their own countries and the United States, but the whole of the world.

There are striking similarities between the objectives of Churchill's speech nearly 75 years ago and Netanyahu's today: both with no less a purpose than to avert global conflagration.

Speaking days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Churchill summarized the course of the war thus far but then concluded with a dramatic appeal to the American people for Anglo-American unity to prevent conflict in the future, reminding them that "twice in a single generation, the catastrophe of world war has fallen upon us."

"Do we not owe it to ourselves, to our children, and to mankind," he asked, "to make sure that these catastrophes do not engulf us for the third time?"

No less profound, and no less far-reaching, will be Netanyahu's appeal for American-Israeli unity in the face of a new danger. A danger perhaps even greater than Churchill was able to comprehend in pre-nuclear 1941. Whereas Churchill spoke of a future, as yet unknown peril, Netanyahu will focus on the clear and present threat to world peace if Iran is allowed to produce nuclear weapons.

And like Churchill in the 1930s, Netanyahu's is a lone voice among world leaders today.

In pursuit of both uranium and plutonium tracks to a bomb, as well as the development of long-range ballistic missiles, there is no doubt about Iran's intent. It has been described as a nuclear Auschwitz.

It is Netanyahu's duty to sound the alarm against such a prospect. It is Israel's survival that is at stake. It is Israel that will have to conduct military intervention if the US will not. And it is Israelis who will die in any subsequent regional conflagration.

But this is not only an existential threat to Israel -- it is a danger to other states in the Middle East and to us all. Doubtful of Western resolve, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey are already investigating the development of their own nuclear capabilities.

An agreement that leaves Iran with the potential to achieve nuclear breakout will trigger a Middle East arms race that will exponentially increase the risks of global nuclear war, a risk multiplied by the vulnerability of regional governments to overthrow by extremists.

Iran's ballistic missile program, inexplicably outside the scope of current P5+1 negotiations, brings Europe into Iran's range, and future development will extend Tehran's nuclear reach to the US. The world's number one sponsor of terrorism, the regime of the ayatollahs would have no qualms about supplying their terrorist proxies with nuclear weapons.

This is the greatest threat the world faces today. Yet all the signals suggest that the P5+1, driven by President Obama's apparent desperation for détente with Tehran, is already set on a path towards 1930s-style appeasement that will end with Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Dear Mr. Kerry - Those IR-8 Centrifuges Developed During the JPA - Oops

...And the JPA didn’t even ADDRESS placing any restrictions on Iranian activities to develop, build, test and even deploy missiles that can serve as the delivery systems for nuclear warheads to reach targets around the world. No Mr. Kerry, my prime minister didn't cry wolf on the JPA. You and Mr. Obama’s track record in making accurate assessments with regard to a broad variety of matters in our region, in sharp contrast, has been shockingly poor.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
26 February '15..

Mr. Kerry and others on the Obama team are now pitching the argument that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu cried wolf on the Joint Plan of Action (JPA) and thus anything he says now against the pending deal is also crying wolf.

But Netanyahu didn’t cry wolf. He was dead right.

"Iran will also in accordance with the Geneva agreement continue its activities in all nuclear research and development fields."
Ali Akbar Salehi, Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI)
April 10 2014

That’s right. The JPA placed no restrictions on R&D activities. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Under the JPA, Iran could actually build advanced equipment as long as it didn’t install it.

Consider the IR-8 centrifuges.

“…the IR8 is the latest generation of centrifuges whose enrichment power is equal to 24 Separative Work Units (SWU)”[AL: 16 times the current generation IR-1 centrifuge]
Ali Akbar Salehi - Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI)
Fars News - Dec 14, 2014

And here’s how an expert reacted to the news: